Imminent Lawless Action

The war of words over "political correctness" have raged on for three decades without any real benefit. The argument has become so muddled that it's no longer clear what "political correctness" even means. There is a problem with the growing prevalence of racist and bigoted speech. Unfortunately, the speech codes adopted at some Universities for instance have suffered from vagueness. Adopting a stance against "anything that might offend anybody" suffers from many problems, primarily from the problem of trying to define the term "offensive."

Perhaps it would be better to adopt the standard of Imminent Lawless Action, as adopted by the Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio which held that "government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is directed to inciting, and is likely to incite, imminent lawless action." Statements that advocate violence against people on the grounds of race, gender, or sexual preferences surely fit under this standard. This is not a "liberal innovation" but a refinement of the Bad Tendency principle which holds that permits restriction of freedom of speech by government if it is believed that a form of speech has a sole tendency to incite or cause illegal activity."

It is also important to distinguish between statements made in a malicious and provocative manner against people saying things that "come out wrong." Everybody has biases about ethnicity gender or something else. We need to find a way so that people can deal with their biases notions without feeling attacked or shamed.